


Oops and Other Things

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Humor, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Rodney weren’t the better man—and he is, he so very is—he’d kick the floor and harrumph and pout into his laptop screen. But he is the better man, so instead he continues working, letting numbers and concepts slipstream past him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oops and Other Things

Rodney’s eyebrows deep in the kind of mental cogitation that leaves other scientists in the dust. He can say this with certainty now—Carter gave one look at the equations he was pondering and fled, babbling something about paperwork she’d rather do—and he’s rather smugly proud of that fact. Well, part of him is proud. Most of him is _busy_ , obviously. Because he is busy.

Busy, busy, busy.

His stomach makes a noise. There’s no one there to hear it, other than himself, and for that he’s passingly grateful because it isn’t just a _hungry Rodney is hungry_ noise. No, no. This is more like a _hungry rodney is contemplating ingesting raw metal and, afterwards, creating new and interesting smells as well as sounds_.

He is never eating Ronon’s cooking again. Ever. He’d rather eat _Teyla’s_ first.

Speaking of, somebody is going to have to teach that woman to cook before her baby is born. The types of gastrointestinal horrors normally associated with Teyla’s cooking, combined with the already volatile inner workings of a baby... that’s an equation Rodney can live without seeing—or _cleaning up_ —and has long-sufferingly already decided that yes, fine, he’ll take over the feeding aspects of the littlest Teyla, which leaves the care and cleaning to the others, ha, when he realizes he is no longer actually working on his precious equations and, also, there’s someone else in the room.

Rodney doesn’t start mostly because he is aware of the person, from some newly-born instinct he’s still a little unsure of, poking it with a mental laser-pointer every once in a while. He does tense up, though. Just because he knows it’s a nebulous someone doesn’t mean it’s a friend. Except, wait a minute, it _is_ a friend, that’s why he’s been ignoring it. Because it’s—“Are you going to stand in the doorway like a recalcitrant child the whole time? Because if so, I can leave.”

Paging bitter, party of one. If Rodney weren’t the better man—and he is, he so very is—he’d kick the floor and harrumph and pout into his laptop screen. But he is the better man, so instead he continues working, letting numbers and concepts slipstream past him.

Without any meaning whatsoever. Dammit! Better man. He is the better man. If he says it often enough, will it mean the same as _busy_ does? Rodney’s game to try it out, anyway.

Sheppard is still leaning against the doorway, ankles crosses with his big, big boots. There’s a faint creaking sound that Rodney takes a moment to identify, then scowls with increasing fervor: Sheppard’s doing that aw-shucks routine to Rodney’s _back_ , rubbing the nap of his own damned neck and sounding like the Tin Man before Dorothy appeared, because hey, Colonel Flyboy Sheppard doesn’t do things like _contrition_. Or confusion. He does _I have no idea what’s going on, so I’m going to ignore it and/or get brusque and angry and hopefully it will go away._

Much like _Sheppard_ had. For the past two days. Whenever Rodney appeared. Oh, they still worked together well enough, if the entire base happened to ignore the way Sheppard needed an extra three feet of distance between him and Rodney, and tended to flee the moment there was an opportunity, real or imagined.

Except, this is Atlantis. Closed society, anyone? Lacking in the finer points of entertainment and distraction from their jobs? Oh, there was the brisk trade in DVD’s, of course. And the .avi downloads were tripling every day. But still—why watch crappy tv shows, with bad acting and worse dialog, when you had the mother of all reality tv shows unfolding live right before you?

Three people had asked him why he was mad at Sheppard and if he could find it in his withered, Scrooge-like heart to forgive the man.

Damn Sheppard’s puppy-dog look. Damn Sheppard for using it _right now_ , sidling into Rodney’s space and kneeing Rodney’s chair 90 degrees to the right, so they were facing each other. “Hey, Rodney.”

“Yes, yes, greetings, salutations, whatever.” Rodney glares, holding onto his frustration. “What the hell is wrong with you? You haven’t been avoiding me, but you can’t actually be in the same room with me for longer than thirty seconds without someone’s _life_ being in active danger.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sheppard starts, rubbing the god damned back of his neck again. If he scuffs his foot, Rodney is cutting it off. “I haven’t been—it wasn’t really—”

Rodney’s eyes narrow with pure, unadulterated hate. “If you’re trying to say ‘it isn’t you, it’s me, all me’ so help me, Sheppard—”

“No! No, no, Rodney, that’s not what I’m—that’s not it, okay? That’s not it at all.”

John looks truly upset at the implication—his eyes are doing that wet, glazed look he uses with such success—and that’s what finally convinces Rodney to relax. His shoulders hurt when he uncrosses his arms. Ow. “Fine, you aren’t breaking up with me. Good.”

That finally gets Sheppard’s attention. “Wait a minute,” he snaps, head up for the first time in days. “You thought I was _what?”_

Frustration and anger are starting to leak out of him like a balloon left stuffed full of helium for far too long. “Breaking up with me? Yes. What else was I supposed to think? You were ignoring me, running away from me, not _sleeping_ with me, which really, that was a particularly low-blow. There’s no way I’m going to get this array finished without some kind of stress relief and I was hoping you’d do that really slow thing with your mouth because—”

Because he’s tired. And cranky. And sore, mentally, emotionally, and physically. And having Sheppard vanish out from under him had been like suddenly losing his legs. Rodney’s not sure when the hell they’d become so co-dependent on each other, and he doesn’t like the reminder. Mostly because he doesn’t _care_. So long as he actually has Sheppard, which, clearly, he doesn’t.

Unwilling to play the game anymore—and at this point, he has no idea whose it is—Rodney saves his program and starts shutting down his machine. Bed, bed, bed. Time for bed. 

“What,” he asks, eventually.

Sheppard’s staring at him. Really staring. With his mouth hanging open in a way that’s actually unattractive.

 _“What_ , Sheppard. Spit it out already.”

Licking his lips is normally an opening gambit for saying something uncomfortable. So when Sheppard starts to chuckle, and then to laugh, and then to dissolve into hysterics Rodney isn’t above calling _giggles_ , it’s as breathtaking as a one-two punch.

Rodney closes his laptop with as much dignity as he has and reminds himself that it isn’t like he didn’t see this coming. That’s Sheppard’s problem, not his and—

Strong hands catch him around the shoulders, pushing and prodding his body until Sheppard can lean down and laugh directly into Rodney’s face, kissing merriment and apology both with a sweetness that leaves Rodney stock-still and breathless. Sheppard—John—doesn’t stop laughing, or kissing, angling Rodney closer until Rodney can taste cinnamon and apples, tangy and fiery sweet both, gifted to him by a man who is warm and pliant all around him, offering something Rodney really isn’t sure how to take.

Eventually, the laughter stops and Rodney starts kissing back. The sweetness fades quickly after that, John still under him as Rodney takes and takes, desperate for what he’d thought he lost. Or was losing. Might be losing. Something.

“What the hell,” Rodney asks, eventually. He’s panting into John’s face and doesn’t care. Oh, wow, does he _really_ not care.

“I was being stupid. No, really,” John adds, quick to cut Rodney’s rejoinder off. “I thought—I forgot something I thought was important.”

He _thought_ was important? Rodney leans back enough so he can see all of John’s long, hang-dog face. “Once again, this time with something resembling a language the two of us can both share, please.”

John smirks, but there’s a little bit of sadness there. “I kept waiting for you to get mad, and then finally you _did_. It kinda took me a while to figure out you were mad cause I was expecting you to be, not because I’d forgotten.”

Forgotten? Forgotten something important, something John expected him to care about, to get _angry_ about... 

Rodney abruptly pulls out of John’s arms and glares. “Did you forget to pick up the poker winnings, again? Dammit, John, that’s _Jamaican blue coffee_ , you don’t just go leaving that around where uncultured cretins can get their hands on it!”

There’s a rant brewing— _coffee_ —but John just leans in again, kissing with that apple-tang, tongue busy and distracting as it runs against Rodney’s teeth, quieting them both.

Mostly. “You did remember the coffee, right?” So he’s panting. So John’s become a lot better at kissing. Those are both good things.

“Yes, Rodney, I got the coffee,” John drawls, smirking as he leans Rodney back towards the desk, hips pressing together. “I got some other stuff, too. To make up for it. Even though I don’t think I really need to.”

Heat pools low and familiar at the base of Rodney’s stomach. He loves when John gets insistent and eager, enthusiastic for anything they might choose to do, body for once completely mellow. At least, until Rodney finally decides what he wants, and then it’s like a starter pistol is fired somewhere, a switch is flipped into the _on, on, really on_ position because like this, John just _goes_ with it, whatever it is, especially that really slow thing where John sucks and licks and teases him until Rodney’s so far past excitement that it’s like the orgasm is an afterthought, something he isn't even aware of because he's so lost in pure _bliss._

Oh, more kissing. Rodney likes kissing, soft, full lips that are brushing lightly against his own.

“You do need to make it up to me,” Rodney murmurs, far too interested in kissing to care. Except he hasn’t gotten to where he has by ignoring an opportunity. “The last few days were pretty crappy.”

John licks his lower lip, soothing the wintergreen chill from a bite. “I was. But I forgot your birthday, so I figured you’d take it out of my hide.”

And just like that, John’s _gone_ , disappearing out the door with only the trail of his laughter for Rodney to follow.

Rodney blinks. He can’t change gears quite that fast anymore, especially when—waitaminute. His _birthday_. Sunday was his _birthday_ and he’d _forgotten_ , and so had everyone else—which Rodney will avenge later—because mostly he’s finally figured it all out.

John forgot his birthday. And like the well-trained ex-husband he is, he thought Rodney would be upset about it.

Shaking his head fondly, Rodney finishes shutting down the laptop before heading back to his quarters. He _is_ going to make John pay for it—other than an opportunity for presents, Rodney thinks about birthdays much the same way he does about President’s day, as in, he mostly doesn’t until someone reminds him and then he has to take a few more seconds to understand—for driving them both so crazy, and for assuming that Rodney _would_ care.

But that’s a different kind of retribution. That’s the kind Rodney can draw out for _weeks_.

John’s in the middle of lighting candles when the door slides open. He has the grace to look sheepish for exactly two point five seconds—but by then, Rodney’s crossed the room and they’re kissing again, slow and gentle, hands still against their shoulders, Rodney’s back, quiet but for the wet sounds of their lips, their breathing, as flickering golden light pools all around them.


End file.
